Nebraska Furniture Mart
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Nebraska Furniture Mart is the largest home furnishing store in North America selling Furniture, Flooring, Appliances and Electronics. NFM was founded in 1937 by Mrs. B (Rose Blumkin) in Omaha, Nebraska. She worked in the business until age 103. In 1983, Mrs. B sold a majority interest to Berkshire Hathaway with the famous handshake deal with Warren Buffett. NFM now has three stores. The Omaha store is over 420,000 square feet (39,000 m2) of retail space and is on 77 acres (310,000 m2) of land. The Kansas City, Kansas store is also 420,000 square feet (39,000 m2) of retail space and is on 88 acres (360,000 m2) of land and sits across from the Kansas Speedway. The third store is in Des Moines, Iowa and is 24,000 square feet (2,200 m2) and sells appliances, flooring and televisions.

In the early 1990s, NFM opened a state of the art electronics and appliance store NFM Mega Mart which sells computers, software, music, videos and personal electronics items as well as TVs and appliances. In the early 2000s, the Mega Mart was branded like the other NFM buildings on campus as the Nebraska Furniture Mart Appliance and Electronics Store. In the Fall of 2007, The state-of-the art store was completely revamped from the inside out and includes a 200-foot (61 m) overhead warehouse connector and over 600 active video displays. Over 30 new jobs were added plus more cashiering stations and 12 new fully operational dream kitchens. The overhead connector connects the Appliance, Electronics and Computer Store to the 651,000-square-foot (60,500 m2) Distribution Center. Four exclusive shops were added including Sony, Bose, Apple and Harman@Home. Cox and DirecTV (as of January 2009) have their own full service customer service areas.

Nebraska Furniture Mart also owns Homemakers Furniture in Urbandale, Iowa, a suburb of Des Moines. Homemakers itself has a branch store in Altoona, Iowa, which is advertised as a factory outlet store.

According to Berkshire Hathaway's 2007 annual report, NFM's Omaha and Kansas City stores totalled about $400 million in sales each in the last fiscal year.Contents [hide]
1 "Mrs. B"
2 See also
3 References
4 External links

 

Rose Blumkin (b. 1893, d. 1998) was born Rose Gorelick outside Minsk, Russia. She moved to the United States in 1917. She started Nebraska Furniture Mart in the basement of her husband's pawn shop in 1937. She continued to be involved in day-to-day operations until shortly before her death at the age of 104. Although gifted at mental arithmetic, she was unable to read, write or even sign her name.

We're Still Here . . . and There . . . Today

Russian immigrant Rose Blumkin began her spectacular version of the American Dream in 1937 when she opened Nebraska Furniture Mart in the basement of a small shop in downtown Omaha. Following her simple business tenet to "Sell cheap and tell the truth," Mrs B's dedication and savvy would spearhead an uninterrupted 70-year sales growth span for the "Mart."

Even a devastating Category 5 tornado in 1975 couldn't alter the course that Mrs B and her store were following. With millions of dollars in damage to the store, Mrs. B and her son, Louie B, simply regrouped to build a bigger and bolder Nebraska Furniture Mart.

Amidst constant modernization updates to the store and 77-acre campus, a massive electronics and appliance store was added in 1994. In 2003 Nebraska Furniture Mart added a state-of the art warehouse and distribution center and a new store in Kansas City, Kansas. The Kansas City store which encompasses more than 1,000,000 square feet of retail and distribution facilities is the first location outside of Omaha to offer its full compliment of products.

So impressed with the reputation and success of his hometown store, billionaire investor Warren Buffett used a simple handshake with Mrs. Blumkin to close a famous $60 million deal. Mr. Buffett would say of Mrs. B and the 1983 purchase of 90% of the business, "I would rather have her word than that of all the Big 8 auditors . . . it's like dealing with the Bank of England."

In 2000 a remodel of Nebraska Furniture Mart Omaha was completed. Also in 2000, the Homemakers store in Des Moines became a part of Nebraska Furniture Mart.

In 2003 Nebraska Furniture Mart opened a new state-of-the-art 651,000 square foot distribution center in Omaha, and a new Nebraska Furniture Mart retail store in Kansas City, Kansas.